O’Neill pulls out of Kildare panel

Kevin O'Neill has withdrawn from the Kildare senior football panel but reports that Mick Foley had followed suit are wide of the mark.

Foley attended training with the squad on Tuesday night but O’Neill was a notable absentee, having told management last week that he would be calling it quits.

The Moorefield defender has been a bit-part player for the Lilywhites in the past two seasons, having succumbed to a number of injuries and a subsequent loss of form.

He arrived on the inter-county scene relatively late in his career, missing out on minor and U-21 selection before being given a chance at senior level by John Crofton in 2006.

He was one of Kildare’s most consistent players in Crofton’s two-year reign and seemed to have solved the full-back issue, which had been a problem since Crofton’s retirement.

"I’ve been playing for the club for so long and achieved with the club, I just wanted the next step up" he said at the time. "I wanted to find out if I was able to play county football or not."

Perhaps his greatest performance in this period came in Moorefield’s All-Ireland club semi-final replay loss to Dr Crokes in 2007, when he quelled the threat of Colm Cooper. It was only when the ginger-haired maestro moved to half-forward that the tide turned in Crokes’ favour.

O’Neill retained the No 3 jersey in Kieran McGeeney’s first term as Kildare manager, as well as the majority of last year’s league. A dislocated shoulder ruled him out of the opening two Leinster championship games, however, and by the time he was restored to fitness, he had slipped down the pecking order, seeing just nine minutes of action in the All-Ireland quarter-final loss to Tyrone and made.

He failed to make any impact during this year’s league, his sole appearance coming as an early substitute in the round 5 defeat of Westmeath at St Conleth’s Park last March, in which he played for 52 minutes.